“Uncontrollable” Staffordshire Police

Oh Dear. The force labelled by the Daily Mail* as “out of control” has decided to victimise those former police officers, now medically retired, who became injured on duty whilst serving for it. (*we know some people refuse to read the Daily “Fail” but occasionally it does serve a purpose for campaigning journalism – Press Awards Newspaper of the Year for 2016).

PEAM is used along with police staff earnings and appropriateoccupational earnings information to calculate potential earnings. It is not necessary for PEAM to be in the regulations as forces can utilise differing methods for calculating earnings.

In an example of unprecedented lunacy, it seems as though Staffordshire, with the current Chief Constable Jane Sawyer retiring, is looking at compulsory reviewing any former officer who ISN’T a band one!

The irony is unparalleled given the degree of disablement of the majority of Staffordshire injury awards were calculated using a flawed methodology and therefore falls foul of the Fisher judgement that ruled that any “thin in the extreme” reasoning and lack of individual application means the decision should not stand.

PEAM by it’s nature removes individuality and covers all of those piped through it with a generic blanket of defaults – all variables predefined by a spreadsheet algorithm.

So it amazes us that these people can’t read? If only the HR minions of Staffordshire viewed our blogs. The legal bill of paying thousands upon thousands of pounds could be avoided. Equality law exists to prevent this discriminatory use of a discretionary duty.

To give you a flavour of what unlawfulness to expect, look at the first line of their ‘policy’ here:

The purpose of the reassessment of Injury Benefit (otherwise known as an Injury Pension or Injury Award) is to ensure that the recipient (the Injury Pensioner) receives the correct level of Injury Benefit.

Wrong from the get-go.

A review (under Regulation 37) is not a reassessment. Only after evidence of substantial change can there be any revision to the degree of disablement and it is unlawful to calculate a new degree of disablement to find substantial change. It absolutely has nothing to with regressing to the ‘correct level’ of benefit … whatever that is!

We covered the ridiculous “goldilocks” syndrome some HR directors grasp hold of over a year ago- read the dismissal of it here.

Someone in Staffordshire thinks they know everything there is to know about the Police Injury Benefit Regulations.

Interestingly Gareth Morgan, the Deputy Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset, will be appointed Chief Constable of Staffordshire next month.

Let us remind you of the February 2017 press release this future Chief gave concerning the historical abuses conducted by a police doctor, and subsequently covered up by senior personnel.

“Anyone requiring a police medical examination held on police premises by a police doctor should have had an expectation of being safe. It is clear that the conduct of some of these medical examinations fell well below this standard.Deputy Chief Constable Gareth Morgan

Plausible deniability can not be argued by Mr Morgan. He was in a senior post whilst Avon & Somerset thought mass reviews were a good idea. He was also the senior investigative officer on the 2015 College of Policing’s scathing report on the horrors of ill-heath retirement.

It looks like we will reporting extensively on Staffordshire and we will do whatever we can to show them the true path.

18 thoughts on ““Uncontrollable” Staffordshire Police”

So, before they’ve even started the reviews, Staffs are breaching the regs and flouting the law. They’re either a contemptible collection of embarrassing incompetents, or malicious deviants. What bit of “adhere to the regs and case law” is beyond their wit?

They publicly state that the reviews are to make sure an IOD is neither overpaid nor underpaid, yet it seems that they’re not reviewing anyone in Band One (to establish any possible underpayment), and use a formula which stuffs an IOD’s banding anyway.

Do they seriously think they can get away with such guff? They probably could when IOD’s were isolated and naively believed that their force would act with honesty and integrity. Thanks to IODPA, the balance of power is starting to level, but there should never have been a need for IODPA to even exist in the first place.

Staffs will have to allocate a hefty (and utterly wasteful) budget for the inevitable court action if they don’t get their act together and stop acting with impunity.

An officer is killed on duty and they’re lauded. They survive those same injuries but are pensioned out, they’re a burden that needs targeting by ANY means, no matter how vulnerable. It’s warped and utterly immoral. If they don’t respect the regs and case law to the letter, they deserve the court kicking and public shaming that’s coming their way.

Another disgusting performance by the plod ACPOO and there hired liar Guns. They seem to relish in persecuting injured cops who gave there lives doing the right thing, or so they thought. At some point in the future corruption and fraud will be exposed and we will end up in court. I always remember being told as a young plod by a criminal, ” I have to get lucky every day, you only have to get lucky once”. Sleap well corrupt Drs , HR people and all other corrupt ACPOOS. Oh and yeah and good luck donught boy Chief Wycombe taking over corrupt Staffs Plod, How did the fitness test go.

The figure produced by the (unlawful) PEAM method multiplies two percentages together to get a final percentage and therefore the level of disablement.

One percentage is produced by HR, the other by the SMP. When the two are multiplied together they will inevitably produce a lower final percentage. Here are the chances of being awarded each of the four bands using this method,

It seems to me that IODPA is doing a far better job of ‘policing’, as far as IOD pensions are concerned, than any of the Force CC’s or HR units. Every single member of IODPA has been treated like a fraud, a fake, or a hypochondriac when being retired or reviewed. We were police officers for crying out loud! We were known to be honest and reputable people with no convictions other than personal attitude which we had to sometimes with-hold when doing our job. We have done nothing wrong! We were harmed, sometimes very badly, whilst doing that job! We believed that we would have been treated a lot better than we have been since our injury and IOD retirement! How wrong we were. There are rules and regulations for dealing with Police Injury Pensions, but other than having the ability to copy and paste them, when necessary, none of the HR workers seem to be able to read or understand or even care about what they mean. We are all just numbers to them! I think that the biggest reason that Forces have got away with their unlawfu
actions for so long is because nobody knew that it was happening to others. There s no communication between IOD pensioners in any way, shape or form unt
the HO made such a huge error in 2004 advice they gave out. That is now changing!!!!!! Thank God for IODPA

Surely the federation will involve themselves in this. How can it be legal to ignore Band 1 officers? We all know why, but it is disgusting to rule out officers whose condition may have got worse, but they do not want to know. The Chief should hold her head in shame but they do not give a fook in reality.

So, another Chief Constable, who is too ignorant to actually read and understand the regulations! If she has read the regulations and has understood them then she must purposefully and maliciously be ignoring them. So, a Chief Constable who ignores the law? Surely not?

Hopefully, all potential recruits to these particular Forces in this Country will be acquainted with these blogs. They will then actually understand that if they are seriously injured on duty and unable to continue working their Forces will ignore the law and refuse to look after them in the manner the law prescribes!

Many gaps have been left unfilled by the Fed & NARPO, and it is seemingly only the IODPA which has stepped-up and provided us with expert help that is needed by all Injury on Duty Pensioners. Everyone who comments on these IODPA blogs describes how valuable they are.

Injury on Duty Pensioners cannot now afford to be without the Association that is the IODPA.

Is it not time therefore for the IODPA to develop its Association further? Would not a more formal subscribed Association and membership provide an enhanced level of protection and fairness under the law for us all? Is it not time too for such a membership to also support those who are doing the hard work for us and providing us with this invaluable service?

Yippee another bunch of muppets soon to be led by the biggest muppet of them all Morgan ex idiot from Avon and Somerset and he is straight into bullying IODS from the off.
Fill in this form properly or we will punish you by putting you in band one, oh you are all in band one anyway.
What clown in Staffs has decided that they are omnipotent and have the power to punish IODS for not filling in a form? Soon their name will be known and they may decide that it wasn’t the best decision to start the review process with a threat. I wonder if the passport office will start punishing us form making mistakes on a application form, we may all be sent to a penal colony.
PEAM needs to be challenged and removed from the review process and Morgan needs sendin to a penal colony with the rest of the p****es.
I feel for IODS in Staffs but there is a lot of support out there now and I am not talking about the Feds but who knows Staffs Feds may be on the IODS side.

Thanks for your support unlike local Narpo (no surprise there!) Not only are they not reviewing band one but no one over 72 ! Where does that come from !
Interesting but worrying times ahead at least you are there for help .

This group of police force HR managers, occupational health personnel and the odd force solicitor is supposedly concerned in its quarterly meetings with keeping the police workforce fit and well. The clue is in the name - it is supposed to concentrate on people who work. However, it spends time also considering matters relating to disabled former officers. Quite what legitimates this group's interest in disabled private citizens who are in receipt of a police injury pension is a mystery.

The mystery deepens when it is revealed that the Home Office and representatives of the commercial company which has the contract to run Police Medical Appeal Boards, HML, also regularly appear on the list of delegates. The mystery morphs into something smelling of conspiracy when the delegate list is entirely absent of any representative of any of the people whose lives the NAMF seeks to affect. There is nobody from the Police Federation, nor from NARPO, nor anyone from any disablement charity, mental health association, etc. etc. In other words, the NAMF is a one-sided talking shop. Even at that level it is not properly representative of all police forces, for we note that there are rarely, if ever, delegates present from every area.

Those of us with long memories, recollect that the Home Office claimed that it had conducted what it called a 'survey' of all forces, way back in 2004, prior to finalising its unlawful guidance issued as Annex C to HO circular 46/2004. The HO claimed that their survey showed that it was common practice for forces to review the degree of disablement of injury-on-duty pensioners once they reached what would have been normal force retirement age. This is what the guidance said:

'This Guidance is being issued to help ensure a fairer, more cohesive approach to the payment of injury benefits to ill-health retired officers who have reached the compulsory retirement age with their Force. A recent survey found that practice in this area was diverse. Some forces automatically reduced degree of disablement benefits to the lowest banding when this age had been reached - others continued to pay benefits at the same rate until the death of the Officer concerned.'

The plain truth, revealed through Freedom of Information Act requests, was that there never was any survey. The HO later tried to claim that the bold, unmistakable claim made in its guidance resulted from 'round the table discussions' at meetings of the NAMF. Yet nothing even hinting at such discussions appeared in the minutes and the HO could not produce a single scrap of data nor any record or any other evidence to show quite how it had come to the conclusion that some forces automatically reduced benefits to the lowest band at what would have been normal force retirement age.

Shockingly, further research revealed that absolutely no forces, not a single one out of the 43 in England and Wales, had ever reduced benefits to the lowest band at what would have been normal force retirement age, automatically or otherwise. The Home Office was caught out in a blatant lie. It was a lie intended for one purpose only - its actually intent was to give an air of normalcy to the huge change in practice which the HO wished to bring about.

This astounding act by a Government department tells us what the NAMF was then, and remains now. It's objective in so far as police injury on duty pensions is concerned, is to subvert the law of the land. The law cannot be changed retrospectively, so the inner circle work to find ways to unlawfully manipulate it through influencing gullible HR managers, and by training carefully selected corruptible SMPs how to refuse grant of an injury award and how to conduct reviews which reduce the degree of disablement of retired officers.